WBPCC asks Shinde to send central team to WB on law and order

Kolkata: Congress Wednesday alleged law and order in West Bengal was on the verge of collapse and asked Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to send a central team to ascertain the situation.

"The law and order situation in West Bengal is collapsing rapidly. The state is now facing an unprecedented problem of lawlessness creating an environment of anarchy," WBPCC President Pradip Bhattacherjee said in a letter to Shinde.

"Recent unprecedented violene at Bhangor (South 24 Parganas) police atrocities in Tehatta (Nadia), police firing on unarmed villagers in Loba (Birbhum) and several similar incidents have proved beyond doubt that the law and order is on the verge of breaking down," he said.

Alleging that TMC workers were assaulting opposition party workers, he said "several recent incidents have established beyond doubt the lack of an effective administration and rule of law in the state."

In his letter, Bhattacherjee also alleged crimes against women were rising.

"The most disturbing part is the apathy of the government to book the culprits when they belong the ruling party," Bhattacherjee, a Congress Rajya Sabha member, said.

Alleging that TMC had obliterated the distinction between the administration and the party hierarchy and that the state secretariat Writers` Building was being used as a TMC mouthpiece, he said that "as a result, the police administration is not acting impartially.

"Under such circumstance, it would be prudent to intervene immediately to assess the collapsing law and order situation in the state. We request you to send a high-powered team to the state to investigate. It is required for protection of the interest of common people of Bengal," he said.

Dubbing the allegations as baseless, senior Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said Congress was shedding "crocodile tears" for CPI(M) and should not forget that former central ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Santosh Mohan Deb and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi were assaulted by the Marxist party.

TMC spokesman Derek O B`rien told a news agency, "I am a cricket fan. Sir Garry Sobers scored 365 ..... When a Congress state chief writes to his party colleague who is also the Home Minister I can only say Congress does not think beyond 356 (Article 356).

"Congress has many decades of experience of being CPI(M)`s B`team. Such letter only confirms it," he said.

Minister Firhad Hakim said the party would do well to ask for a similar central team to inquire into recent brutal Delhi gangrape and alleged it was working as an `appendage` of CPI(M).